LOLTofu's Profile

Gah, I wish I'd seen this post earlier! I ended up at Angelina's Bistro downtown and it was awfully disappointing. I got a gnocchi dish that really tasted like little balls of soggy mashed potatoes, NOT gnocchi. My omnivorous boyfriend got a badly overcooked steak that was awash in capers. He said it was both weird and bad.

And while I'm sure Detroit has awesome Lebanese food, my family is part Lebanese and I'm pretty sure I will always like our versions of things best.

This looks nice and I'm always in favor of veg recipes on Chow, but I am not sure this will stack up against my stand-by recipe. I loooove Bryanna's "tofurkey" roast, especially laced with some extra garlic and herbs. Because that recipe uses vital wheat gluten (the key ingredient in seitan), it is incredibly chewy and makes the best leftover "turkey" sammiches.

So Chow, I ask you: what's the texture like on this thing? Is it soft or chewy?

Thanks for all these recommendations, everyone. My boyfriend and I are traveling to Detroit to check out some museums this weekend and I came to Chow with this exact question. I've now shortlisted Modern, The Fly Trap, Red Sea, and Diamond Jim Brady's Bistro. I also picked up Traffic Jam and Snug from another thread. Any specific recommendations from that list?

(And one reason I'd agree with Tokyo about not wanting Middle Eastern recommendations is because I feel like I can get great vegetarian Middle Eastern or Indian at home. When I go some place new, I really want to try food that's creative and less standardized.)

I think the advice about not bringing your own food is a little weak. A lot of people don't even think about the meat ingredients that go into their cooking (meat stock or broth, lard in processed foods, fish sauce, anchovies in caesar dressing, gelatin everywhere) and that starch/vegetable on the table are in no way guaranteed vegetarian fare, particularly at a ranch house. I think bringing something to dinner is both sensible and polite, especially if you're an awesome vegetarian cook and you want to share something delicious with the group. It's a lot more polite than pretending to be smiley as your blood sugar crashes over an empty plate.

After reading this thread on my phone, I went on a bit of a Tiki Crawl in search of a great Mai Tai in NYC. I started at The Rusty Knot on all the recommendations I saw here. It was a fun looking bar with really cool, nice, easygoing bartenders, but the crowd was annoying (sort of frat-housey) and the Mai Tais, though tasty mixed drinks, weren't actually Mai Tais. They lacked orgeat completely. HOWEVER: if you go to the Rusty Knot, which I do really recommend, the spiced colada is absolutely fantastic. They also make their own ginger juice for their dark and stormy, so try that, too.

Otto's Shrunken Head came next. Great punk rock tiki atmosphere with a fun crowd, but sam1 isn't kidding about getting the right bartender. I got a different bartender than my two friends, and their Mai Tais were downright passable. Mine was a completely different drink, completely undrinkable. It had grenadine and possibly pineapple rum and it was a horrendous combination of too sweet and clashy flavors. I highly recommend snagging the bartender with the shaggy bleach-blond hair if she's there. If she's not, get a beer.

This recipe is stellar. I'd only ever had the OJ/rum float type of mai-tai and this one is just in an entire other realm of goodness. Good orgeat was worth the hunt, and I made my own rock candy syrup with raw sugar. Totally delicious and a huge party hit.

I made this recipe for my big Thanksgiving party and it was an enormous hit (served it in a punch bowl with a frozen cranberry juice ice ring). However, next time I'd omit the fresh cranberries, as guests didn't really know what to do with them other than drink around them. I think pomegranate seeds would be a better pick for edible macerated fruit with a tart bite.

Alton Brown's Old Fashioned Coconut Cake. I have to admit I use some shortcuts (like I don't make my own coconut extract), but it is the most perfect, succulent, and absolutely to-die-for cake I've ever eaten. It even wins over those pesky "I hate coconut" people, as it completely lacks the disgusting flaked supermarket coconut.

Millennium Restaurant's Italian Sausage seitan, which I have also turned into gyros and breakfast sausage.

I don't know the area that well, but I stumbled into a surprisingly delicious tofu noodle bowl at the vaguely-Asian noodle stand in Tomorrowland. It included fresh cilantro, a lime wedge, and they even had bottles of sriracha at the condiment station! Expecting limp pizza and soggy burgers, I found it to be a surprisingly good choice for in-park fare.

My family has a passed down recipe from our Syrian-Lebanese side that I've never heard of any place else. We call it shish butter, but that may be some sort of bastardization. Basically, it's ground lamb with lemon juice, mint, garlic, and allspice folded into wrappers (we use wonton wrappers now), then toasted in a hot, buttered skillet, then simmered in a plain yogurt and butter sauce. We eat it (and its recently developed vegetarian counterpart) over Syrian rice (rice with toasted vermicelli, pine nuts, and allspice). Has anyone else every heard of this, or know its real name?

Wow, that cheese stat is jaw-dropping. I feel like there is a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to nutritional know-how and the American public. I wonder what strategies could be employed to break down some of the eating myths to which many people cling.

I second Northstar and Dragonfly. You may find Dragonfly pretentious, depending on your taste, but the food is unbeatable. It's very high end cuisine, all locally grown and sourced (much of it from the chef's kitchen garden behind the restaurant). Northstar is more casual (they offer brunch on the weekends) with sweet-potato-hash breakfast burritos and ricotta pancakes.

Sooo much agreement. My boyfriend and I LOVE Banana Leaf, and I'm so glad other Cbusites (Cbusonians?) have found it. The chat and buffet is amazing, but if you're ever ordering off the menu, try the Paneer in Cashew Butter. You will die of happiness.

What are your opinions about the volume and frequency at which Americans consume meat? Do you think it's responsible, environmentally and health-wise, to promote a "meat at every meal" mentality, and if not, does the conflict of selling a product vs. acting on conscience move this decision at all for sustainable meat farmers?

I'm mostly curious because I'm a vegetarian who isn't morally opposed to humans eating meat, but I have a serious distaste for the meat industry and thoughtless meat consumption. I know that you guys are not exactly the mainstream meat farmers, but I would love to hear discussion and ideas from the omnivorous side of the table.